R.E. slavery

Define Slavery

An insidious practice that involves one person owning another person and can occur in many ways. People were forced into serving others, being treated as property with little to no rights.

Identify the key features of slavery

When did slavery exist?

• Slavery has been a pervasive practice throughout much of human history, appearing in various forms from ancient civilisations

• Transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to 19th centuries.

Where did slavery exist?

• Slavery has been present across virtually every continent and culture worldwide, including Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Notable systems include those in ancient Rome, the Atlantic slave trade connecting Africa to the Americas, and various forms of chattel slavery and forced labor globally.

Why did slavery exist?

• High demand for cheap or free labor to support large-scale agriculture (e.g., plantations), mining, construction, or domestic service.

• Other factors include conquest (enslaving war captives), debt, punishment, or social hierarchies where dominant groups exploited marginalised ones.

Conditions of Slavery

• Dehumanisation: Enslaved individuals are stripped of their human rights and dignity, often subjected to severe physical, psychological, and emotional abuse.

• Violence and Coercion: The system relies heavily on physical violence, psychological intimidation, and economic control to prevent escape, enforce obedience, and maintain the enslaved state. This denies individuals any means of self-sufficiency or freedom.

State the 3 religious teachings disregarded by slavery

1. Human Dignity

2. You shall love your neighbour as yourself

3. You shall not steal

Outline the 3 religious teachings disregarded by slavery

1. Human Dignity – Everyone has dignity. Each individuals have inherent and immeasurable worth and dignity.

2. You Shall love your neighbour as yourself – Loving one’s neighbour is the natural and necessary extension of true, wholehearted love for God, because your neighbour is made in the image of God.

3. You shall not steal – God gave humans the resource of the earth, therefore every generation, including future generations, has a God-given right to these resources.

Describe three examples where the religious teachings were violated by slavery

1. Human Dignity

• Violation: Slavery stripped individuals of their inherent worth, treating them as mere property and subjecting them to brutalisation and horrific conditions like the Middle Passage, effectively denying their identity and basic human rights for economic gain.

2. You Shall love your neighbour as yourself

   • Violation: Slavery directly contradicted this by promoting systemic cruelty, violence (e.g., beatings, sexual assault), and forced labor, denying enslaved people compassion, justice, and their interconnectedness as beings made in God's image.

3. You shall not steal

   • Violation: Slavery was the ultimate act of theft, seizing individuals' bodies, freedom, time, and the fruits of their labor against their will, condemning future generations to the same fate and violating their divine right to resources and the product of their own efforts.

Explain how the catholic church interacted with slavery

Church context

• In the early church Christians tolerated slavery as a fact of life in the Roman empire.

• Saw slavery as part of the social order that would only pass with the return of christ

• Paul told Christian masters of slaves to treat their slaves justly and kindly

• After Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, slavery was not outlawed.

• Eventually church fathers strongly denounced slavery.

Church views:

• St. Paul (apostle) - argued that you must “obey their masters” – this was the social order in the Roman Empire

• Views changed in the church - there is neither slave nor free, you are all one in christ

• Canon Law and Vatican II 1917 – Slavery was abolished

• Pope Paul III (1600) - “Those who enslave are ‘allies of the devil.’

• Papal Condemnations - “Anyone defending the slave trade could not be considered a faithful Christian”

Early christian practices:

• Communities used funds to redeem slaves

• Many Christians liberated their own slaves

• Church Fathers denounced slavery

• Equal access to sacraments for all

• Two popes came from a slave background